The knowledge of an ordinary inhabitant of planet Earth about his luminary varies greatly. From the fact that the Sun is an ordinary, albeit native, star, to the unconditional recognition of its divine essence, giving life. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. Nevertheless, a crack in the sun caused a panic among a considerable number of people. Let's see if everything is really scary.
This star is called the yellow dwarf, but, being close to the Earth, it shines incomparably more brightly than the full moon. The Sun owes its powerful energy to continuous thermonuclear fusion. Perhaps it was because of this power that a giant crack appeared on the Sun.
sunlight
The constant radiation of the sun is called the solar wind. It passes into heat, directly heating the surface and clouds of the planet, participating in the photosynthesis of organics and oxygen. The sun through plants provides food and oxygen to animals and humans. Fortunately, deadly hard radiation for all living things is absorbed by the atmosphere. The ability of ultraviolet radiation to cause pigmentation of human skin has affected the division of humanity into races, depending on the place of residence and, accordingly, the angle of incidence of sunlight on the earth's surface. Excessive ultraviolet radiation leads to premature aging of the skin, the appearance of wrinkles and in severe cases to skin cancer. A crack in the sun, many scientists believe, can also adversely affect human health.
The role of the sun in human life
The development of human civilization is inextricably linked with the cult of the Sun. In most religions and cultures of the peoples of the world, it plays a crucial role, being the object of worship. Ra, Helios, Horse, Dazhdbog are just some of the names of a deity named Sun.
The sun will explode
Yes, but, fortunately, rather soon, after 8 billion years, scientists suggest that not earlier. Interest in solar eclipses and spots peaked in 2012, awaiting the widely publicized, solemn end of the world. What just did not splash out on the pages of all publications, whether paper or electronic. They tried to tie the end of the world to all events in the history of mankind, its religions, traditions and epos. A true gift to pseudo-scientists, charlatans and fortune tellers who feed on people's weaknesses, fears and ignorance was the publication in August 2012 by NASA astronomers about the presence of a neoplasm on the Sun - a black strip, a crack of almost a million kilometers in length. Naturally, the most gloomy assumptions were made in the spirit of the coming end of the world. There is no need to repeat this nonsense today. Although they saw a crack in the Sun from the Earth, this does not mean that humanity is facing an end.
Real astronomers from the Russian Academy of Sciences then immediately expressed their opinion that the formation on the Sun in the form of a thin black strip or crack, as journalists prefer, is just a sunspot. Let it be of outstanding size, but not even a unique phenomenon. A similar spot was observed in October 2005, but then did not cause such a stir. Many argue that the crack in the sun is growing rapidly. This fact is not proven.
Solar eclipses
The history of observations of the Sun dates back centuries. An unprotected look at the Sun should be watched only in the extreme phases - at sunset and sunrise, when its brightness is incomparably less.
The phenomenon when the moon’s eternal satellite closes the luminary is called a total or partial eclipse. In ancient times, people considered such an event a manifestation of the will of the gods. Solar eclipse, especially full or close to it, causes serious interest in many people, skillfully heated by the media. Over a century, according to astronomers, at least 240 eclipses occur, of which about 60 are total.
Sun spots
The sun has a magnetic field that changes direction over time on average every 11 years. It is this field that causes effects called as:
- sunny wind;
- spots;
- outbreaks.
Spots are the result of a sharp increase in the activity of the star’s magnetic field. After two days, some of them reach an area six times the diameter of the Earth. The amplification of the field suppresses the activity of charged plasma particles, so the spot temperature becomes lower than around it. This explains the local darkening visible from the Earth. Such formations are extremely unstable. With changes in the magnetic field, they are destroyed, which leads to a powerful ejection of a stream of ionized gas of ultrahigh temperature. These are the so-called flashes on the sun.
Their dimensions are enormous. If the stream is directed towards the Earth, then its magnetic field neutralizes it, and the remnants of the stream cause polar or northern lights and geomagnetic storms at high and middle latitudes in the region of poles and high latitudes. Powerful flashes often cause disruptions in the operation of communications, power systems, various electronic devices, and contribute to the exacerbation of many diseases in people sensitive to magnetic storms. In April 1947, scientists recorded the largest group of sunspots in the entire history of observations, which could be seen at sunset with the naked eye. Its size was 36 surface areas of the Earth. A crack in the sun can also be considered such a formation. Such phenomena occurred earlier, and will be in subsequent years. They differ only in scale.
